6.may.2006 _ qualquilia (part 1)

The first night we left Tel Aviv, after a very good dinner and evening with I. and M.'s friends, to spend the night with that amazing furniture in Jerusalem.
The next morning we woke up very early to enter the West Bank... that's the oficial name that Israel has adopted to call Palestina... I think they presume it gives it a more temporary name seeing that for them... it's a temporary country.

Entering Palestina really takes your breath away... or maybe it was just for me... but you feel the difference exiting Isreal and entering the beautiful valleys of Palestina... all of a sudden... all you see is nature... land that just lays in front of you, with it's magical wind.
I stayed silent for a while absorbing it...

As you go in, and before you see any city or town you can't really imagine what this country goes through, you wonder if it's really true, is there really a "war" going on?, is there really a problem around here?... and just when you ask yourself this... you see them... standing in the "mountains" of Palestina... standing clean and in bright white, stand the settlements, above all the "arabs", making a point... you ask what point??
Well... that was what I wanted to understand... what are they and what purpose do they serve? you see them but you can't figure it out... you just can't...

What I could understand right away, was that their main reason to exist was to block any growth from any Palestinian city. Make sure that the existing town can't be extended anymore... that having a Settlement right in front of it makes them stop! This contributes to a lesser quantity of agricultural fields, which means that if the Palestinians can't use their own land, because Israel decided that that piece of land is theirs (which isn't!) then the Palestinians have less fields to grow their own food!
This is something that upsets you... because it just seems too unfair, that a stronger country can just take over like that.
But as an architect, what shocked me most was knowing that most of these Settlements are built in record times, such as 2 years... and in that time you have a whole gigantic town, with all the infrastructures a big european city has to offer. It would be amazing in Europe to find a way to make cities or any architecture project grow that fast, but what I ask is, one thing is building a building, another is building a whole town! It can't possibly be healthy for anyone... especially the "settlers" as they are called, for a city has always been a place that grows with time, with traditions, with all of the differences all of us offer to our own town... you can't buil a city life! You can't just pretend that people that move to these settlements are part of that land!

Maybe Isreal thought of all these things... because, almost all of the people who live in these "white villages" are either "jewish-against-arabs-with-all-their-heart" or plain poor hebrews who get paid to live in places like this (yes, I am speaking in general because I didn´t get a chance to meet anyone who lives there... seeing that they are the most racist people I have ever known!)... so as you can see... as an architect and urban planner I am against places like this... especially in a conflict area... it's like we would all live in very large condominiums and never leave them, because everything is in it!

...we'll get back to this a bit further...

Let me tell you about a magical place, called Qualquilia... yes, this was to be our home for the next 10 days, near the office of an ONG that our palestinian "family" works and lives for.
We didn't have a lot of time that morning to just sit and sip the mint tea always offered to guests in arab homes and offices (we had about 4 per day!... and they're amazing), because they assumed that we weren't there to just sit and relax, but learn about this area of the world... they were right... there was nothing stopping us from getting out there with them, and exploring what Palestina had to offer.
So... up on the truck we got... and their started our journey...
COOPI works all over the world, having different projects according to what country it's in and what problems that country needs solving, so in Palestina they are doing what they call "Job Creation", which basically means creating temporary jobs for people that lost their jobs due to the last Intifada Al-Aqsa in 2000. Seeing that a lot of the Palestinians before all the problems, were the cheap labour in Israel, they were jobless as soon as the wall came up. This is what COOPI tries to change, that for at least a few weeks almost everyone gets a chance to earn some money but also take care of their towns. Seeing that they are stuck within the West Bank, their cities are their "prisons", and Arabs take care of what's theirs.

The ONG representatives, took us on the usual rounds for a saturday morning. It consist of visiting all the spots where they are doing "architectural" projects and talking to the workers and hear them about what they need, think, want, etc...







...these people work hard, they are so grateful them, for getitng them an occupation, making them feel that they have still a duty to their families, and as men (they do hire women, but the arab religion doesn't allow them to work the hard jobs, so it's difficult to find women who work). We saw adults, faces of adults at least, working for their lives, reconstructing sidewalks, rebuilding homes, asfalting roads, painting schools, and planting trees... all of this in the name of freedom... because eventhough the wall prevents them from leaving... it doesn't prevent them to fly... even in their spirits, and that to them is freedom...

...because there are always children looking up at them... for them this is their future... or maybe not...

our day finished with a great discovery... the name of the town now it doesn't come to mind, and maybe that was not an important detail for me, as I discovered such a deep history, and such a vivid memory of how the town used to be before the Intifada...

It's pratically dead... abandoned... the mayor of this small town took us to where he used to take his long walks... now it just makes him sad... a big part of this place is left to die... to be destroyed by the weather and by time...
it hurts to see this... beautiful thins, building, homes, landscapes be left like this...
I said out loud "I wish I was a millionair, so I could rebuild all of this for you"
they looked at me sadly and said "...it doesn't take money... we would find ways of doing it and people to do it also... but Israel doesn't allow us to... they control what we build and don't build..."

So I guess in Palestina you don't need money to help... you just need to be very powerful... you need to change the world...